Opportunity discovers iron meteorite on Mars

Opportunity, one of NASA's Mars rovers, has found an iron meteorite on Mars. This is the first meteorite of any type discovered on another planet.

The small basketball-size object is mainly made of iron and nickel, scientists say.

Readings from spectrometers on the rover determined that composition. Opportunity used its panoramic camera to take the images used in this approximately true-color composite on the rover's 339th martian day, or sol (Jan. 6, 2005). This composite combines images taken through the panoramic camera's 600-nanometer (red), 530-nanometer (green), and 480-nanometer (blue) filters.